High hopes and harsh realities: The real challenges to building a diverse workforce

In this report we examine what it would take to achieve a national teacher workforce that is as diverse as the student body it serves, and how long it will take to reach that goal.3 We look at four key opportunities along the teacher pipeline: college attendance and completion, majoring in education or pursuing another teacher preparation pathway, hiring into a teaching position, and staying in teaching year after year. We discuss how current and potential minority teachers exit from the teaching pipeline at each point, contributing to what we call the "diversity gap" (the difference in the proportion of minority teachers and minority students in public schools). We then estimate the potential impact on the diversity gap
of leveraging each opportunity to bring minority adults closer to the classroom.